The tall man standing beside him looked at Hee-won with an expression of kinship. The name tag hanging around his neck read Lee Hyung-woo. Hee-won addressed him silently in his head, looking at his somewhat anxious face. I hope we both make it through this okay, fellow beta…….
“Today, you’ll be finishing up the basic orientation and then heading home. Oh, and please be aware — for those assigned to the marketing team — the team leader there is the chairman’s son, and he’ll only be with us for six months before leaving.”
Hee-won stared blankly at the orientation director who was murmuring that. Does she think the staff actually care about their superior being swapped out? Aren’t ordinary office workers just living day to day for the paycheck that comes in every month?
Hee-won frowned. That awful team leader is definitely going to be an alpha or omega. And since he was parachuted in, he’s probably dominant, right? Hee-won prayed quietly to himself. Please let me never cross paths with him. Jin Hee-won’s life had enough alphas and omegas in it already with Jin Chae-won and his mother.
Honestly, ninety percent of the orientation was for alphas and omegas, and Hee-won was beginning to question what he was even doing here. Once the orientation ended and he sat down at his desk for the first time, he rubbed his face dry with his hands.
Should’ve just lowered my standards a bit and gone to some small company full of betas. He’d made up his mind to talk to the person named Lee Hyung-woo — but they’d been placed in a different team. This is seriously stressful.
“That person’s a beta, right?”
“How did they even get in…….”
“Who knows, don’t talk to them. They seriously don’t smell like anything at all. First time seeing a beta.”
“I went to an alpha-omega exclusive school too, so…….”
I can hear all of that. Hee-won let out a sigh. Just sort out my things and go. He tidied up his desk roughly and stood up, bag in hand.
The rustling sounds of Hee-won sorting through his things must have masked the sound of someone approaching. The moment he turned around, he startled at the man standing right behind him. Give some warning before you appear out of nowhere. He’d almost reflexively sprayed the beta self-defense spray he’d been carrying around just in case. If this was some attempt at charming him by shoving a handsome face in his direction, he was very much barking up the wrong tree.
“New hire? Do you have a minute?”
“I’m sorry, but I’m a beta.”
“……What did you say?”
“I’m a beta.”
Hee-won said those words over and over without even being able to look the other man in the face properly. He was no different from one of those dolls that squeak out I love you! when you press their belly. No matter what was said to him, he just kept repeating I’m a beta. I’m a beta.
At the end of his downcast gaze, he could see the employee ID dangling from the other man’s neck. Below the man’s neat face — which was currently regarding him with bewilderment — the three characters of Kim Ha-geon were printed in clean block letters.
Below that, in tiny print no bigger than a booger, were the six characters reading Marketing Team Leader. So this is the six-month team leader. He looked like a dominant at first glance. Hee-won couldn’t smell anything, but he could feel it.
“I heard you’re a beta, but I’m asking if you have a minute.”
“I do have time, but I’m a beta, I’m telling you.”
“I said I don’t care that you’re a beta!”
Ha-geon finally raised his voice. Only then did Hee-won, who had been keeping his head bowed and his gaze planted below the ID card until that moment, startle and look up. Ha-geon’s expression read plainly: Where did this disaster of a person come from? Chae-won’s voice drifted through his mind.
Just say “I’m a beta.” Since you’re a beta, appeal to the idea that you’re not significant enough to be worth their attention, and try to slip as far off their radar as possible. Your path to advancement might be a little slower for it, but your day-to-day life will be a lot easier.
He’d leaned too hard into his sister’s advice and ended up producing the opposite effect. The intention had been I’m not someone significant enough for you to bother with — but it had come out as Why are you talking to me, I’m a beta.
He’d gone and made it sound like being a beta was something grand. A flash of distress crossed Hee-won’s face — the look of someone trying to figure out how to get out of this situation.
“You really are easy to read. New hire…… Jin Hee-won?”
“You can call me whatever you like. Team leader…….”
“I heard you say you have time, so come with me now. Bring your things.”
Before Hee-won could get another word in, Ha-geon turned and walked out ahead of him. Being too desperate to live quietly ended up causing exactly this kind of scene. Too much of a good thing, you idiot. Too much of a good thing.
Looking around, every single person in the room was already staring at Hee-won. A beta, of all people — and on top of that, someone who’d barely finished orientation today — talking back to a superior.
Nobody gave a single thought to how Hee-won felt about being called out on his very first day. They simply watched him like he was a spectacle. Letting out a small sound of distress, Hee-won awkwardly hoisted his bag and followed after Ha-geon.
Hee-won had been fully convinced Ha-geon would have walked far ahead by now, but he was surprisingly waiting right outside the door. Ha-geon had been fiddling with a cigarette as if debating whether to light it, and he turned his head to look at Hee-won.
“Why are you dawdling like that? Did you get velcro stuck to your feet?”
He’s sharp because I talked nonsense at him from the start — that I understand — but I feel a little wronged too. Because he’d never lived as a beta, he couldn’t understand Hee-won’s prickly attitude. Hee-won barely managed to hold back the urge to snap at him about why he had to be so rude.
As if seeing right through all of that, Ha-geon gave a light scoff and jerked his chin in a follow me gesture before walking again.
Regardless of whether I have time or not, couldn’t you at least tell me where we’re going? Even if betas were treated as low as they came, kidnapping and forced labor were still illegal.
Hee-won grumbled internally but followed along diligently, and Ha-geon, as if hearing his footsteps, slowed his pace just enough. Then he abruptly extended the hand holding his bag. Does he want me to take it? Hee-won tentatively reached out and took it, and Ha-geon gave him a briefly puzzled look.
“Until we’re out of this building, don’t make any noise and just look straight ahead.”
“Sorry? Oh — yes.”
“I was just reaching this way to signal you to come along, but you went and took the bag too. Anyway, don’t fall more than this distance behind me — if anyone turns around or anything, just act like you didn’t see them and keep walking out.”
Hee-won’s expression twisted in bafflement. What on earth is this silent march even for? It was supremely unfair to be made to do something without even knowing why.
One fortunate thing, however, was that Jin Hee-won was a person who had grown up with thirty years of unfair treatment, and somewhere along the way he had learned to accept it without question.
Ha-geon, who had been studying Hee-won for a moment as he walked quietly one step behind him without any particular protest, smiled faintly. Before any other thought could get a word in, four characters flashed through Hee-won’s mind: He’s handsome.
It was only after walking quite a long way after leaving the company building that Ha-geon let out a long exhale. Sensing that this was the signal that speaking was allowed, Hee-won hesitated before letting the question out.
“Why did you ask if I had time?”
“At first, I called out to you thinking you were just a regular new omega or alpha hire — figured I’d have you run a coffee errand. But the instant I looked at you, I knew you were a beta, and my first thought was that I had to get you out of there.”
“People watching me with cold eyes is nothing new, it’s been that way for ages. But you said you didn’t care that I was a beta.”
“What good would saying it there have done? You’ve been dealing with that cold-shoulder treatment for ages, and yet you didn’t even notice the alpha and omega on either side of you practically slathering you in pheromones?”
Of course not — I’m a beta…….
In that instant, Hee-won was seized by the question of whether this man actually understood who he was talking to. He’d just said he knew the moment he looked that Hee-won was a beta, and now he was asking why he hadn’t noticed the pheromones.
Having never spent a single day living as an alpha or omega, Jin Hee-won genuinely had no idea what pheromones even were. Must be something like breath, I guess. You breathe it in the direction you want it to go, and that’s where it goes.
Perfume — even if someone is spraying it around you, the scent doesn’t transfer unless you spend a full night rolling around with them. The same way, just because someone drenched in sweat is glaring at you from the side doesn’t mean their body odor transfers onto you, right?
Whatever the scientific process behind it, at least thanks to Ha-geon, Hee-won now knew that the alpha and omega sitting on either side of him had marked him as their plaything.
Even back in university, there had been many times omegas and alphas had pulled petty pranks that Hee-won — being a beta — hadn’t caught on to at first. He usually didn’t find out until he got home and his mother or sister tipped him off.
“I didn’t notice.”
“Even if you can’t smell pheromones, those two were looking at you, smirking, glancing daggers at you, and paying close attention to you. Anyone with even a basic read on people would have picked up on it.”
“It was familiar enough that I didn’t feel anything particularly different……. Is there something strange about the way I smell?”
“Other than a mix of chocolate and orange, you’re fine. Probably because it’s a blend of recessive and standard — it’s like orange is faintly sprinkled over chocolate.”
“I see……. I’m just glad it’s not a completely revolting combination.”
This was actually pretty average. Hee-won had memories of going around with something close to a garbage-mixed-with-burning smell on him all day, not knowing it himself. Thinking back on it now — romanticize it? Not a chance, it’s still annoying.
It was the kind of hazing ritual that pretty much every beta experienced at least once during their first year of university. The man standing in front of him now would never have gone through anything like that, of course. Ha-geon looked at Hee-won’s face for a moment.
“Though right now it’s all being overpowered by a strong waft of mint, I’ll say.”
“I hate mint chocolate. If you like mint chocolate, I’ll take that back and go buy you some.”
“Don’t you think it would have been better not to say it in the first place, rather than take it back after? Be glad I don’t like mint chocolate either, beta.”
Ha-geon lightly rubbed his chin and finally pulled out a cigarette and put it in his mouth. Hee-won, who wasn’t a smoker himself but was well used to people around him lighting up without a second thought, simply watched him flick his lighter in silence.
Maybe from now on I should start carrying a lighter around and fawn over people trying to light their cigarettes. This level of flattery and swallowing of pride was nothing at all.
Just like the fact that Ha-geon had known his name from the start and yet kept calling him “beta” — and Hee-won hadn’t made a single objection to it. He’d just been out of practice, since university was the last time he’d been thrown in with alphas and omegas. He could get it right from here on.
“Actually — speaking of which — you’re the first proper beta I’ve seen since joining this company.”
“I see…….”
“So I specifically asked for any beta among the new hires to be placed on my team. Two people were selected, and one of them is you.”
“That’s what it seemed like.”
“You could tell I’d deliberately arranged for you to come to me?”
